


Madeleine's Intervention

by Sarah1281



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 17:33:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/pseuds/Sarah1281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On her way to rock bottom, Fantine goes out one night and happens upon Madeleine giving alms to the poor. The sight of him trying to help people when he had ruined her life is too much for her and she starts laughing wildly,<br/>attracting his attention. Now that his sights have been set on her, Madeleine isn't about to stop until he can do something for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madeleine's Intervention

Fantine felt like her world had ended. She owed so much money, both to the Thénardiers and here in M-sur-M. The Thénardiers must be paid first, of course. Her sweet Cosette should not have to suffer for her mother's sins. The money from the mayor had not lasted long but she could not very well go to him asking for more. He had given her enough. Well, it had seemed like a lot. It had not actually lasted long but that was because of all the debts. Those were debts that she would have been able to pay off if she had not been fired but…she should not blame him. He was a good man. He would refuse her request for more money anyway since he was just but not merciful, not to one such as her.

It was his factory and he could hire or fire whoever he wanted for whatever reason he wanted. He didn't owe her anything. She had known his demands for chaste behavior before she had taken the job and, though she lived a chaste life now, that had not always been the case. Of course it couldn't last; of course she would be dismissed. Now everyone knew her story and she had no money to return to Paris or even go anywhere else. Now she was spending more hours sewing than she could stand and it still did not fee like enough.

She went out after her eyes could simply not see to sew anymore, no matter how much she strained them, and headed to the cheapest place she knew to buy food. She would feel guilty, she knew, for wasting some of her precious coins on food but she hadn't had anything to eat that day and shaking hands wouldn't aid her work.

On her walk there, she saw Monsieur Madeleine out among the men, women, and children of the street (she felt a small stab of pride that, despite how far she had fallen, she was not quite there yet). He who was so rich was out here among the poor giving money and a quiet smile.

Many of these people, she knew, had sins worse than hers. Did Madeleine imagine that they were all pure and just unfortunate? Was it alright to help those who were not pure as long as they did not work for him? He would not have them in his factory where he would never have to see them but he would knowingly seek them out…

She couldn't help the slightly wild laughter that came bubbling out of her. Madeleine's head shot up and his eyes darted in her direction. She stumbled backwards, not wishing to speak with him. He quickly finished with the man he had been giving money to and hurried after her.

"Mademoiselle," he said, appearing at her side.

Another laugh, this one tinged with bitterness. Mademoiselle. She was not married, that was true. That was the source of all of her problems. Was he mocking her? And such a title of respect!

Madeleine's eyes furrowed in confusion and a little bit of concern. Perhaps. "Is something the matter, Mademoiselle?"

She couldn't help it, the laughter continued and she burst out, "That you would even ask me that!"

"I am sorry," Madeleine apologized immediately, sounding uncertain. "I do not mean to give offence. I truly do not know what is wrong."

She should just turn around and walk away. She knew this. "What is wrong with me is nothing more than what is wrong with every woman with debts and a child and no work."

His eyes flickered at that. "No work? There is truly nothing to be had?"

Fantine's eyes hardened. "Do not think that because your words are coated with honey that they are any less cruel."

"I'm sorry," Madeleine apologized again. Would he stop apologizing and just cease to say things that good manners dictated he apologize for? "I do not mean to be cruel or to condemn you for your lack of work. Sometimes there is just no work, is all. I know this."

Fantine just shook her head. "Oh, there is plenty of work, Monsieur. You've made certain of that."

He frowned. "Then I'm afraid I do not und-"

"There is no work for one such as me," Fantine interrupted.

Madeleine opened his mouth to say something and then seemed to change his mind. "Come, the night is cold. Let us not have this discussion while we stand outside."

"And where would you have us go?" Fantine asked. She was not about to bring the mayor back to her own room, though they were not far away. She did not want him to see what she had been reduced to and she did not need people to think she had seduced him.

"Let us go back to my room," Madeleine suggested. "My portress can make us some tea to warm us up."

That was slightly better. She really should get back to her sewing but she was cold and the promise of warmth and of tea was too much to resist. Perhaps she would even get money out of it and the evening would not be another failure after all. She did not want his money but Cosette needed it and her pride must never cause her precious daughter to suffer.

She nodded wordlessly and the two of them made the journey in silence. When they reached the mayor's home, a home far less grand than one of his station and his great wealth should have, Madeleine did as he said he would and before Fantine knew it she was seated at a table with a cup of warm tea in her hand.

"Now please tell me what you mean by there is no work for one such as you," Madeleine said encouragingly.

Ah. So he would make her detail her shame to him, was that it? Well it was working out fine and it was not hurting anybody and his sensibilities had been what had driven her to such lengths for Cosette. Even Tholomyes leaving had not ruined her like this man's devotion to the good.

"I suppose that I mean that after you dismissed me for having a child and then ensured that everybody knew it, no one was willing to give me another job," Fantine said bluntly.

Madeleine drew back as if he were slapped. "Dismissed? I dismissed you? Because you had a child? I do not know what to say."

Strangely, his distress was having a calming effect on her and she sipped at her tea. "Then you shouldn't have begun this conversation."

"Why would you be dismissed for having had a child?" Madeleine asked, looking lost. "Everyone needs work. Ideally a man will be able to provide for his family but if there is no man to be had or he is not enough then a woman must seek out work. And to have no work when there is a child…such a thing is intolerable!"

Fantine smiled thinly. "I know that and far better than you do, I suspect."

"Then please, tell me what happened? How could your having a child and needing work more than ever have cost you your employment at my factory?" Madeleine said urgently.

"My child," Fantine cut herself off and trembled a little despite the warmth from the fire. She had never spoken the words aloud before, she didn't think. "My Cosette is not a child born from a married couple."

Madeleine's eyes widened.

"It is my own fault, I know. I met a man and I fell in love but since when is that ever an excuse?" Fantine asked bitterly. "I met a man and I gave him everything. He never promised to marry me and I did not ask. I did not think of it, truly. All I knew was that I loved him and would have given him everything. I did give him everything. And he gave me my Cosette so I could never hate him for that. Whatever else he has cost me, I do not begrudge him Cosette. She is the best of my life, you see."

"What happened to this man?" Madeleine asked, sounding oddly soft.

Fantine shrugged. "What ever happens to men such as him. He left."

"And you found out that you were with child afterwards and could not get a message to him," Madeleine concluded.

Fantine laughed again at his naivety. "Oh, I do not know if he ever received any of the letters I sent. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he read them all and delighted that I needed him so and could not forget him as easily as his letter bid me to. It matters not, though, for he knew of Cosette. My daughter was already more than a year when he left."

"And he just…" Madeleine trailed off, shaking his head. "For a parent to just abandon their child like that, for a man to walk away from a child who is his responsibility when he has it within his power to help…So many lack that power but it sounds as if this man did not."

"No," Fantine agreed sourly. "He did not. I was alone, I had a child, I had fallen out of the habit of working. What could I do? I left Paris and I came back home. I was born here, you know. Paris is too expensive. I was hoping that I would be remembered and some work would be found for me. They did not know me but it did not matter because you were willing to hire anyone. You were even willing to hire me when I lied."

"And the child?" Madeleine asked her. "What of little Cosette?"

"I could not bring a child here," Fantine said, looking away. "I could not watch her while I worked all day and I could not explain her presence as I had not been married. I knew that knowledge of my sin would lead to me not being able to find work."

"Why did you not say that you were a widow?" Madeleine asked her abruptly. "Or that you were merely Cosette's aunt whom she loves and calls 'mama'?"

"You would have had me lie?" Fantine asked, shocked despite the fact that she had essentially lied to everyone by not mentioning her daughter's existence. It was not quite the same, though.

"Lying has its uses," Madeleine said quietly, a shadow crossing his face. "It should never be done to hurt and not if you can avoid it but sometimes, it really is for the best and harms no one."

Fantine continued to stare at him. A great man like the mayor advocating desperate lying! The world truly was upside down.

"Your daughter, for instance. Had you brought her here and pretended that the circumstances were different then I cannot imagine that things would be worse for you than they are now," Madeleine continued.

Fantine felt the laughter welling up within her once more. "Perhaps," she allowed. "But who can change the past? And I did claim I was a widow once, to the people whom I left Cosette with. I do not think they believed me. I have never had any great skill with dishonesty."

"What a world this is when honesty and good nature can lead someone to ruin and duplicity could save them," Madeleine said distantly. He hadn't touched his tea.

"Honesty? Good nature?" Fantine repeated, a little mockingly. "That is not the message you sent when you dismissed me. Perhaps it is only acceptable to see these things from a distance where no one can think to connect you to such shame."

Madeleine began to pick at the tablecloth. "You keep saying that I have dismissed you. Why do you keep saying that? What has happened?"

"I say it because it is true," Fantine said, ignoring the unspoken request to change her story and pretend that her fall had nothing to do with him and his goodness. "Someone found out that I had a child and there had never been a husband. I do not know how they found this out. When this was discovered your forewoman took me aside and explained that because of Cosette I could no longer be employed. She asked me in your name to leave the neighborhood but I could not. I have too many debts, you see. She did give me fifty francs from you and that was more than you had to do. It was not enough to pay off my debts and I suppose you think that, in addition to being a sinner, I am a great fool to have managed to gather so much debt."

Madeleine looked horror-stricken. It was clear that he had never stopped to think of what the consequences for his dismissing her in the name of morality would be. At least it seemed to bother him. "In…my name?"

Fantine nodded. "Yes. It was your factory, she was your forewoman, it was your fifty francs, it was your order to leave the neighborhood."

"To ask you to leave!" Madeleine said distractedly, looking as though he wished to jump up and begin pacing. "Was it not enough that she had cost you your honest employment? She had no place to try and make you move. That was wrong."

"So you did not request that?" Fantine asked rhetorically. She shrugged. "It is no matter. I did not leave. I would have had I been able to but there was too much that I owed."

"I'm sorry, I…" Madeleine trailed off and his brow furrowed. "It occurs to me that I do not know your name, Mademoiselle. Please, who are you?"

Her life had been ruined by this man who did not even know her name. Was it her imagination or did the room just get colder? "Fantine."

"Fantine," Madeleine repeated. "Well, Fantine, I do not know what to say. I can only tell you that I am so sorry for everything that has happened to you. I…word cannot express my horror at your situation or perhaps it is merely that I do not know the right ones."

What was she to say to that? 'Thank you for caring?' After everything that he had done?

"Why did you dismiss me if you are so sorry?"

Madeleine winced. "I did not. It is no excuse but it is true."

Fantine's eyes flashed. "Do not insult me! I tell you that you did. You can ask anyone and they will tell you all about how that whore was expelled from good Monsieur Madeleine's factory!"

Madeleine held up his hands to calm her like one would a spooked horse. This only annoyed her further. "I do not doubt your story, Fantine. All I can say was that my forewoman never took the matter to me. This is the first I have heard of it."

That could not be. Fantine clenched her fists at her sides. "Everybody in town knows of my shame. Everybody. How can you, the man who runs the town and who owns the factory I once worked at, possibly claim to not be aware?"

Madeleine sighed deeply and looked down at his still-untouched tea. "I do not know how I did not hear of this. I try to help out where I can and perhaps it is arrogant of me to think that I can succeed in making things better. That this has apparently been going on for quite some time and everyone knows but I did not hear of it is…disconcerting, to say the least. Who knows what else I have been missing? I can only say that I do not seek out gossip and people do not take it to me. I cannot let such a thing happen again."

"It was your money I was given."

"I can only presume that the money came from the fund I gave my forewoman to use to provide charitable assistance to the workers. I was concerned that if someone was ill or injured and could not work that they and their family would starve if they had no bread until they were well again," Madeleine replied. "I trusted her and did not ask her to tell me how she had spent the money. I see that even here, she did try to lessen the blow of your dismissal."

Fantine shook her head, trying to make sense of this. It sounded so unlikely that he would have simply not noticed and it hurt to think that her predicament was his fault but so insignificant that he had not even noticed. But what would he gain by lying here? If he said he did not notice but he still agreed with her dismissal then there was no point in pretending he had not been the one to make her leave. Everyone agreed with his decision. If he pretended he did not agree then how would he explain not hiring her back? And not even noticing something like that did make him look bad. And then there was the most important thing.

"Even if you did not know of me personally or order me to be dismissed, I was dismissed because of your morality policy," Fantine pointed out. "You said that men must have good will and women must have good morals. They must be chaste and, though I have only been with the father of my child whom I loved dearly, the fact that my child exists at all prove that I am not virtuous enough for you."

Madeleine slumped in his chair, looking as though she had struck him. "I had not realized…"

"Monsieur le Maire?" Fantine asked, leaning forward in her own chair.

"When I was younger I did not care to do good the way that I seek to do it now," Madeleine told her vaguely. "A man made me see that I needed to do more the human race. I have tried, oh how I have tried! I wanted to provide work for any who needed it but I wanted to inspire my workers to be good people since they were to be provided with honest employment and thus have no need to turn to crime. I do not feel that I am mistaken in asking that people try their best to live good lives but I did not see…Oh how could I not have seen!"

"What didn't you see?" Fantine asked, confused.

"Not everyone has lived a life where they have nothing to be ashamed of," Madeleine said quietly. "Sometimes terrible choice have been made and, though they should not have been, it is as you said that the past cannot be changed. I cannot believe that a man – or a woman – who has sinned once is lost forever. I did not realize that when I demanded good morals from people now I had set up people who are trying to stay on a righteous road now after past mistakes up for failure. You were not chaste in the past but you love your daughter and you seek only to care for her now. How is that not deserving of the chance for honest employment?"

Fantine looked at him with widened eyes. Marguerite had told her all along to see the mayor and she had helped her learn to get by on next to nothing but she had never come out and told her that she didn't deserve to be punished for her transgressions. No one had, not ever. And not Monsieur Madeleine was. It was too much and she trembled as she looked at him.

Strangely, Madeleine seemed to understand as his eyes softened and he calmly waited for her to compose herself.

"I…would do anything for my Cosette. I would die if I thought that that would help her instead of ruin her."

Madeleine reached over and, carefully observing her face to make sure that it was acceptable, gently took her hands in his. "That sort of love could never be wrong."

She closed her eyes.

After a few more moments, Madeleine released her hands and asked her, "How is it that you have managed to get so much debt, Fantine? You strike me as a woman who would not spend wastefully. With no work, I can see how the debt would pile up but you said that you had debt before you were dismissed."

Fantine sighed heavily and opened her eyes again. "I was not always so good at being poor as I am now. When I first arrived, I rented my furniture and took a room with the understanding that I would pay for it once I started to make money. I made twelve sous a day. I have to pay for postage for every letter that the Thenardiers, the inkeeping couple with whom I left my Cosette, sends me from Montfermeil. I made twelve sous a day and when I was dismissed I was paying ten of that for Cosette's keeping. They ask for so much but how could I deny my Cosette anything? And then I lost my job and had to make do sewing."

"You were surviving on two sous a day?" Madeleine asked, appalled.

Fantine looked down. "Yes. The sewing is sustaining me. I am not good at it and I spend most of my waking hours on it, I really can't afford to be away from it for this long, but it will do for now. But I will not be able to compete for much longer I fear, and then who knows what will happen?"

"Why not?" Madeleine asked.

Fantine smiled bitterly. "It is the prisons, if you will believe it!"

"The prisons?"

"I do not know much about prisons," Fantine explained. "But there are a lot of prisoners who spend all day sewing. They do not get paid even as much as I do and so it is cheaper for people to use the prisoners instead of a free woman like myself."

For some reason, this seemed to pain Madeleine. "Even in chains, even in trying to pay their debt to society through their labor and their youth, they can still ruin lives? Is this a common story? How many suffer because of what the prisoners have no choice but to do?" he murmured.

If Madeleine could think that everyone deserved a second chance and she had not deserved to lose her position, was it any wonder he could bring himself to feel sympathy for even the convicts? How could she have been so wrong about this man?

"That is how it is," Fantine said, almost to herself.

Madeleine seemed to remember himself and looked back at her. "That cannot be the way that it stays."

"I do not know what else to do," Fantine told him.

"The first thing we must do is send for Cosette," Madeleine decided. "She should be with her mother who loves her."

"I cannot afford-" Fantine started to protest.

"It was my fault that you lost your position and have had such a difficult time," Madeleine interrupted. "Please, let me do this for you."

Cosette was all she had left and all she wanted in her life. How could she refuse?

"Thank you."

"We also need to rid you of your debts here in town so that you can start anew," Madeleine decided. "And then some sort of employment must be found for you. You are right that working in a factory when you must care for your child is not ideal. You can have your position back, of course you can, if we cannot find something else for you but I will give the matter thought and see what I can come up with. Perhaps I can even find a reason for you to not have spoken of your dead husband and child before now. But even if I cannot I will not leave you alone to struggle to support Cosette."

Fantine smiled then, the first heartfelt smile she had managed since she had last seen Cosette. If this was a dream then she never wanted to waken from it. So many blows she had been dealt, so much pain. She had begun to hate the world, she rather thought, but that was a mistake.

"Good Monsieur, you come from God in heaven."


End file.
